At 6:16 am EST, July 21, we experience a second Full Moon in Capricorn during this Cancer season. While the first full moon at the beginning of the season took place in the first degree of the sign, this one takes place in the last, bringing the healing journey we have been on this season to a peak. This Cancer season has potentially been quite emotionally tumultuous, forcing us to find wholeness within and address some deep-seated inner child wounding. Hopefully, we have learned or reinforced ways to feel and process our emotions as well as soothe our inner child, allowing us to enter a new level of self-mastery.
Because Pluto (currently in the first degree of Aquarius) is meeting up with the moon, what’s also illuminated is a bigger cycle that has been at play since 2008 - the lessons we are integrating from Pluto’s journey through the sign of Capricorn (which it will officially exit after its final retrograde into the sign this fall). Wherever Capricorn is in your chart will feel like there is a big cycle ending, but some final lessons about this energy - and the structures and conditioning that need to be dismantled in order for your soul to evolve - will not be fully complete until November 2024.
Those with prominent cardinal energy (Aries, Libra, Cancer, Capricorn) have likely been feeling this energy the most. This full moon will impact them, as well as those with energy in the early degrees of fixed signs (Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, Aquarius) the most.
Full Moons Cast Shadows
During a full moon, the moon (representing the subconscious) is illuminated by the consciousness of the sun, allowing us to gain insight on something normally hidden from sight. The additional influence from Pluto also being illuminated by the sun currently adds an extra layer of depth to this energy. If the moon is the subconscious, Pluto is the collective unconscious. The lord of the underworld rules over all of the collective shadows and soul memory. In Capricorn, Pluto taught us about the conditioning and structures that may be disempowering us and have outstayed their welcome in our psyche. With its shift into Aquarius (for good in November of 2024), it wants us to break through these beliefs and the conditioning to take back our power and build new structures that give us the opportunity to live in radical alignment with our soul’s truth. Pluto’s symbol (see right) shows the soul rising above the personality (or ego), and it therefore symbolizes a life led by the soul’s truth, not by the illusion of the ego. The final [anaretic] degree of Capricorn, in which this lunation is taking place signifies catharsis - this is the tower moment (and really, it’s the vibe of all of 2024). These words describing the 29th degree of Capricorn by Ellias Lonsdale say it perfectly:
“An architect carefully surveying old ruins.
What is to be seen is the outer skeleton of things. What is to be known is the inner essence of things. The code, the extraordinary revelation, the realization is there inherently in the very substance of existence. A practiced eye can see inside, can penetrate and illuminate. The schooling in perception comes between lives and then overshadows each and every idea or notion anybody can come up with. But to access and do honor to this advanced faculty is rare. For seeing the whole truth is excruciating to the ego-mind. And therefore the battle is on to awaken to your innermost truth, or to succeed brilliantly in adapting your truth to the marketplace, selling your soul to the highest bidder.”
Emotional Maturation & the Breaking Point
This lunation, once again, brings the spotlight on the Cancer-Capricorn polarity - illuminating the balance between our inner mother and father archetypes, family conditioning, roots, and how the past influences the present. It is the journey of becoming emotionally mature and self-responsible, not seeking outside of ourselves. With the influence from Pluto, we may be forced to see something about ourselves that we are uncomfortable witnessing. This is a chance to see what lurks in the shadows and make a commitment to operating differently.